Opening line:
"That spring, rain fell in great sweeping gusts that rattled the rooftops."

A compelling, coming-of-age story in the harsh climate of Alaska and an abusive father.
Ernt Albreight is a Vietnam POW with issues. He keeps moving his family, Cora and Leni, around to find peace. When the chance to build a new life in Alaska opens up, he takes, regardless of the hesitation of his wife and daughter. Alaska is unforgiving, but the people in a little town are inclusive and embrace the family.
At first Ernt is happy and doing well. The townspeople come out and help them get ready for winter because it will kill you. Leni makes friends with the only boy, Matthew, her age and they fall in love. Cora makes friends too but Ernt is too controlling, too possessive, which leads to jealousy, so Cora backs away from friendship to satisfy her husband, keep him happy. But that's not going to last because Ernt is an abuser who hits first.
After a tragedy, Matthew goes to live with his sister. Leni and Matthew miss each other and write letters constantly. In the meantime, Leni becomes Alaska Strong while Matthew plays hockey. Leni has become a hunter and keeps her family feed. There are disruptions in town, thanks to Ernt's jealousy that he never gets over.
Then tragedy after tragedy after tragedy happens and suddenly the story is sliding away from me and I'm trying to figure out why it's all happening in the last part of the book. What? I felt like I couldn't take a breath and I felt like the ending came so quickly.
I love Kristin Hannah's writing. I couldn't stop listening to it but at the same time I had to take breaks from the story. There were a lot of characters to keep track of but the main ones were full of life and quirks. I wasn't fully invested in the love story but it was sweet and ended the way I think it should have. This is a dark story with moments of sunshine and beauty.

Over 100 swear words but no F bombs; harsh living; angry, abusive father and husband; teen pregnancy; broken bones.
Thanks to netgalley for the read!

I really enjoyed this book. Kristin Hannah has another winner. She does such a great job with her characters. You feel like you really get to know them the way she develops them throughout the story.

The writing, as always was topnotch, but I wasn't as interested in the time period in this book as with Nightingale.

I absolutely love this author. She has such a way of engrossing you into her characters. The description of landscape, weather and people make you feel like you are there. The sadness never out weighs the happy. Always a good read

I chose this as the June read for my library's book club. It's a group of about 15 ladies who meet once per month. I mostly selected this because of the high ratings and praise for Kristin Hannah's previous novel, The Nightingale, which I have not read. I enjoyed this book and wanted to see how it would end. I wouldn't say it's a great book, however. I did cry once or twice, but feel that was more because of the author taking us for a ride on an emotional roller coaster than due to experiencing a well-written story with well-developed characters. I found a few parts of the plot unbelievable. I found Hannah's heavy-handed foreshadowing almost insulting. I recall rolling my eyes at one point when she wrote for the 100th time about how the unpredictable dangers in Alaska were not only in the wilderness but also in their home because of the abusive, mentally ill father. It was good, but not good enough to prompt me to go back and read The Nightingale.

I was not impressed with this book. It was not as fun to read as Kristin's other books. It took a very long time to get into.

This book about killed me. My book club chose it for our April book and while I knew everyone loved Kristin Hannah I had never read any of her books. The writing is so so good and well plotted, but the tension with her dad kept making me put the book down. Logically, I was fine, but certain situations had my heart racing and at one point I had to "put it in the freezer" for a few days. Highly recommended, but only if you're made of strong nerves.

This was an excellent book especially about the harsh living conditions in Alaska. Even through the rough winters, the Alaskans love it. This book is the story of Leni and her family and how they get to Alaska and their struggle to survive. You won’t regret reading this one.

I was loving this book when I first started it. It completely drew me in and enraptured me. I got about a quarter of the way through and then it lost me. The story is about a girl who moves to the wilderness of Alaska with her parents when her nomadic father makes an impulsive decision to drag the family on a new adventure. Kristin Hannah is wonderful at painting the scene and bringing the story to life, and although she is known for writing lengthy novels, most of them can stand up to the excess of pages, like The Nightingale. This one, however, took a nosedive. Once the family arrives in Alaska and begins to establish their homestead, I lost all interest. I also found parts of it to be grotesque and a tad bit unbelievable. *ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Kristin Hannah is very skilled at emotional writing. Recommend to fans of Nicholas Sparks or YA romance.

I loved this book so much. It’s entirely too long and the author uses several turns of phrase over and over again but the story is so engaging and suspenseful against the Alaskan wilderness.

Kristin Hannah's best work yet. The Great Alone was a wonderful read that I didn't want to end. So happy that Hannah chose to tell Leni's story through adulthood.. When Cora moved Leni back to her parents, after Matthew's acciddent I expected the story to go a different way. Beautiful work!

A sweeping picture of life in Alaska that captures the beauty and danger of life on the edge. Good character
development but a little too predictable for me.
It is a good quick read.

St. Martin's Press and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of The Great Alone. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

In Kristin Hannah's capable hands, readers are transported to rural Alaska in the 1970's. This epic tale follows thirteen year old Leni Allbright on a perilous journey, both in regards to the harsh landscape and her father's volatile temper. Given the opportunity to put down roots in Alaska, after her father is willed a piece of land from a Vietnam soldier friend, the family quickly realizes that they are not prepared for life in the wilderness. Help from the close-knit community sets Leni, Ernt, and Cora on the right path, but will the looming winter and Ernt's deteriorating mental state doom the family to failure?

The Great Alone gives a grim picture of domestic abuse in the 1970's, before battered women were encouraged to seek help from the authorities. Author Kristin Hannah's descriptions of rural Alaska, with all of its beauty and its perils, was captivating and gave the book a believable foundation. She captured Leni's hopelessness and her frustration over her mother's choices perfectly, providing her with the right amount of backbone and strength. There were a couple of plot points, especially towards the ending, that did not seem realistic given the relationships that Leni and her mother formed. Overall, The Great Alone is a fantastic portrait of the Alaskan wilderness and the characters contained within the story are realistically portrayed. Readers who are fans of Kristin Hannah's previous novels will not be disappointed and those new to the author will be quick to seek out more of her works because of The Great Alone.

The setup and the beginning of The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah is intense in the characters, the setting, the situation, and the emotion. It has a sympathetic main character to care about. The events seem frighteningly real. However, as the book proceeds, it seems like a race to incorporate every bad thing that can happen into this one story. Let's just say that it goes too far and undermines the "reality" of the powerful setup of the book.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2018/05/the-great-alone.html

Reviewed for NetGalley

I've been pondering what to write for a week, beyond "I loved it. Read it". After contemplating, and even writing notes for, an english class level exploration of the turns of seasons in Alaska as an allegory for the lives and relationships of the main characters, I realized it would ruin your experience and set up weird expections. Instead I'll keep it simple. "I loved it. Read it".

Loved everything about this book and could not put it down! With a father who is a Vietnam vet with PTSD and crazy ideas and a mother who loves and enables him, Leni knows how to play her part in the family well. After a move to Alaska, she makes friends and becomes a strong independent survivor who learns how to fight for what is right (with the help of her community) even if that means turning against her own family. Full of twists and turns, family, love, community, acceptance and forgiveness Kristin Hannah has created an emotional roller coaster of a read. Will be recommending to all and especially book clubs!

This book was a fantastic read. I couldn't put it down. The author spins a tale so realistic, you feel you are a part of the story. Ms. Hannah wowed me again!

It took me a bit to get into this novel (50-100 pages or so) but once I did, I was IN. The best part of this novel is Alaska – the place is as much a character as anyone else. And Hannah does an amazing job setting the scene and making Alaska come alive in all its glory. The Albright family is a train wreck waiting to happen and so the book moves along with a subtle darkness and suffocation because you know this isn’t heading to a happy place. The novel explores mental illness, PTSD, isolation, community and more. Leni is a wonderful character and I really enjoyed following her experiences. She really amazed me in so many ways throughout the novel. She has an inner strength that was refreshing to see. I don’t want to say much about one of the themes that the book explores because it contains a big spoiler but I will say that the family dynamics were handled very well in this novel. It was gripping and heartbreaking and I could not put it down. I love how Kristin Hannah’s work has developed over the last few novels. She does such a great job of telling a story with emotion and heart. And this book is exactly that – full of emotion and heart. It will make you feel … it even made me cry a few times. I highly recommend this one!

This book took me a bit to get into, but once I was into it I enjoyed it. The Nightingale (a 5 star read!) was a hard act to follow, and may have clouded my enjoyment of this one a bit.